Vintage Range Hell

[j88olt]

Not sure anyone can help with the disaster I had after installing an oil fired dual boiler Vintage Range back in December 2012. The range was supplied (7-months late!) by John Cleary owner of Vintage Ranges based in Brundish, Suffolk.

My experience has been pretty awful. Two days after installation of the range by an OFTEC oil engineer the left hand hot plate was searing hot at the back when only the central heating burner was on. When the cooker boiler was turn on and turn up gradually, excessive heat transferred across the hot plates so fast that the surrounding top plate exploded in 3 different places - one measuring 10 x 2.5cm. A couple of days later, again with only the central heating burner on (position 2) black fumes were belching out of the fan flue and the house was full of black, potentially dangerous fumes. Vintage Ranges was informed and Cleary asked to inspect the damage but instead disassembled the boiler, leaving it in pieces which meant that OFTEC was unable to investigate the root cause. The blast tube was two thirds melted and other adjacent components melted.

It cost me £2000 to get the house cleaned from top to bottom. Thankfully no-one was killed or harmed as the house was empty at the time.

Three months on and I still don't have a working range as protracted discussions with John Cleary have led nowhere. He has refused to replace, refund or repair the range, only offering to undertake replacement of parts and full refurbishment at my cost. It was therefore very interesting to read a comment of his in an earlier post that reads:
"Best advice for anyone with problems with a Heritage is to demand of them that they remove it immediately and replace it with a Vintage Range and to pay for the distress and replacement costs. I designed and founded Heritage in 1999, I chose an 'Undesirable' business partner, a strange one! Took him to task and then created Vintage."

This post is found at #post144042. It's a shame John Cleary doesn't practice what he preaches!

I am posting this information as a warning to anyone thinking of getting a Vintage Range and I would be interested to hear from anyone with problems associated with John Cleary / Vintage Ranges.

To see the damage and distress this range has caused take a look at this video:
[video]www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LVmr75ELKk[/video]

 

[lame plumber]

small claims court is your best option in this case, no brainer if what you say is true. having seen the video there has been a major malfunction some where be it due to poor commisioning or parts failure. Safe to say I will stick with aga or rayburn as they are tried and tested and proven bits of kit

try watch dog, it would make a change to them chasing gas engineers to have an oily in the picture and oftec under pressure.

 

[j88olt]

small claims court is your best option in this case, no brainer if what you say is true. having seen the video there has been a major malfunction some where be it due to poor commisioning or parts failure. Safe to say I will stick with aga or rayburn as they are tried and tested and proven bits of kit

try watch dog, it would make a change to them chasing gas engineers to have an oily in the picture and oftec under pressure.

Thanks lame plumber for your advice. Because the manufacturer disassembled the boiler before OFTEC could examine it he cleverly avoided investigation of the appliance by them. Alarmingly OFTEC allow him to commission ranges when he is not OFTEC registered to do so!!! So Watchdog is my next port of call.

 

[lame plumber]

you said an oftec engineer commissioned the range so bit puzzled as to whats going on here.

 

[Dotty]

Mmmm. I'd be asking questions of the commissioning engineer too.